The World of Abadonya

The Broken Wall

Stormscar Ridge is a long shelf of volcanic rock scarred by old lightning strikes, heat fractures, and collapsed lava tubes. From a distance it resembles a row of shattered teeth. Closer inspection reveals dozens of dark openings, some no larger than animal dens, others broad enough for wagons or warbands.

Travelers rarely linger here. The ridge catches violent crosswinds, loose stone gives way without warning, and strange sounds carry from beneath the mountain after sunset.

Doors Without Doors

The most important feature of Stormscar Ridge is the number of entrances leading into the cavernous mountains. Some are natural fissures, while others show signs of deliberate widening, old stonework, or chisel marks worn smooth by age.

No complete map of the interior exists. The known passages twist downward, split unexpectedly, and sometimes reconnect miles away. Some caverns are dry and wind-carved; others are damp, sulfurous, or warm enough to suggest deeper volcanic chambers.

Experienced guides mark safe entrances with stacked stones or white chalk. Such signs cannot always be trusted.

Things Beneath the Ridge

For generations, travelers have told stories of pale eyes watching from the cave mouths and small, hunched figures moving between cracks in the stone. The most persistent rumor claims that a colony of wererats occupies part of the mountain interior.

Those who believe the stories say the creatures use forgotten tunnels to move unseen across the western reach, emerging at night to steal food, tools, trade goods, and occasionally people. Others dismiss the tales as smugglers frightening away competition.

What keeps the rumor alive are the tracks: barefoot prints beside rat trails, gnawed leather straps, and camp supplies that vanish without any sign of a normal animal attack.

Travel Conditions

The ridge is dangerous even without hostile inhabitants. Sharp obsidian scree cuts boots and hooves, sudden gusts can knock climbers from exposed ledges, and old tunnels sometimes collapse after heavy rain or tremors.

Other hazards include sulfur pockets, narrow squeezes, unstable bridges of volcanic stone, sinkholes hidden beneath ash, and deep shafts that carry voices from far below.

Travelers approaching from the Cinder Trail often use the ridge as a shortcut, but few do so without rope, lamps, chalk, and at least one person who has survived the route before.

Under the Old Dwarven Mountain

Stormscar Ridge lies within the same volcanic range as Dragonsmane. Dwarven travelers sometimes claim the deepest caverns once connected to maintenance tunnels, mine roads, or forgotten service routes belonging to the sealed stronghold.

No accepted route into Dragonsmane has ever been proven. Even so, treasure hunters repeatedly return to the ridge hoping that one of its passages bypasses the fortress gates.

Among older dwarves, digging toward Dragonsmane from Stormscar Ridge is considered reckless at best and sacrilegious at worst.

Stories Told Along the Western Roads

The Lantern Below: A blue lantern is sometimes seen deep in a cavern where no traveler is standing. Those who follow it are rarely seen again.

The Rat-King’s Toll: Caravan guards swear that leaving a silver coin at certain cave mouths prevents theft during the night.

The Singing Crack: One fissure hums during storms. Dwarves claim the sound comes from old ironwork buried inside the mountain.

The Missing Survey: A Keynew survey party once entered the ridge to map its caves. Only their mule returned.

Reasons to Enter Stormscar Ridge

A merchant caravan loses supplies every night near the ridge, and the guards blame wererats. A missing scout leaves behind a trail that ends at a narrow fissure. A dwarf offers good coin for proof that one cavern contains old Dragonsmane stonework. A collapsed passage exposes worked masonry beneath natural rock. Or a traveler emerges from the ridge feverish, carrying a coin stamped with a dwarven mark not seen since the war.